Not attending to key labor management issues already costs facilities in terms of staggering turn over expenses which get passed along to us as patients and to our insurance companies.
Nations now compete in global markets for a diminishing number of nurses, thereby stretching thin the supply in countries most in need of more. The yearly burnout of tens of thousands from this limited pool of nurses affects everyone everywhere. With fewer and fewer nurses available to serve us, each surviving nurse becomes a highly qualified professional who is simply too scarce to sacrifice.
Without intervention, errors from short staffing will continue to escalate risk of medical error and thereby compromise patient safety. The price of doing nothing entails hazardous costs to our health and the well-being of our loved ones, especially those of advanced age. It is time to address the shortage of our talented nurses through effective decision making now. The book "Too Scarce to Sacrifice" has provided the initial dialog that is finally beginning to inspire a real discussion by framing the issues in a strong solution oriented, applied economic/labor management context.